Johnny and Shannon.

Our friends Johnny and Shannon are currently living in Ireland, so we spent a weekend with them in their current hometown Galway and they spent a bank holiday weekend with us in Cork. A bank holiday happens on the first Monday of every month....lucky Irish, they have at least one long weekend every month...but chances are it will be raining.

It's official, Galway's cutest couple...posing at the 'postcard' picture part of Galway.

Shannon and Marc, at the beginning of the coastal boardwalk.

There is a wall that you're supposed to kick at the end of the promenade walk (for reasons unknown, possibly to laugh at tourists kicking walls??)....we weren't sure which wall that was, so we all kicked this one...

...and then Shannon came up with these great pics...

...look out ninja Marc, I'm gonna get you!

...great Ninja form...

Galway is a pretty town with a nice pedestrian area that we explored the next day with Johnny, and also this archaeological dig...

A couple weekends later they were in Cork. Ireland just happened to be having a heatwave that weekend with temperatures soaring to 24C! Unfortunately that only lasted Saturday, but we got some good patio sitting in and saw a Gospel concert along the river. The next day we all took the train to Fota Wildlife...here's what we saw...

Marc with our roommate Maarten.....any idea what this animal is?? (Do not confuse Marc with his crazy lion/bear hair as the 'animal')

Johnny feeding the ducks...Shannon taking great pics...

Our favourite duck, David Bowie.

On our way back to the city....and for one last dinner before we said au revoir to our Canadian friends!

Check out this video, it's a monkey with a bowl!! Sounds boring, but when you see a little monkey running around with a bowl like he just found a pot of gold is pretty cute.